Time-Saving Tips For The Bar Exam: How To Study Efficiently

Time-Saving Tips For The Bar Exam: How To Study Efficiently

Preparing for the bar exam can be overwhelming with the vast amount of material to cover in a limited amount of time. Maximizing your time spent studying can be crucial to ensuring success on the exam.  In this post, we talk about our top tips for saving time studying for the bar exam to help you study efficiently!

Time-Saving Tips For The Bar Exam: How To Study Efficiently

1. Eliminate Distractions for Focused Study Sessions

This probably goes without saying, but distractions can significantly undermine your ability to study efficiently. Identify your primary distractions and devise strategies to eliminate them. We’re including a few examples of how to do this below.

• Social Media: Temporarily deactivate your accounts or delete the apps from your phone while you prepare for the bar exam. This will make it less tempting to mindlessly scroll as you study.
• Mobile Devices: Place your phone in another room to avoid disruptions. It’s amazing how keeping your phone out of sight can significantly reduce distractions.
• Home Environment: If home distractions like chores or TV disrupt your focus, consider relocating to a spot where you can keep that laundry that needs to be done out of sight and out of mind. You might working at a library or a coffee shop helps incrase your productivity.

2. Optimize Your Study Schedule According to Your Productive Times

Everyone has different times of the day when they feel most alert and productive. Identify whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, and schedule your most intensive study sessions during these peak times. Here’s how you can optimize this strategy:

• Morning Person: Schedule complex topics in the morning when your concentration is at its peak.
• Night Owl: Take advantage of the quiet evening hours to tackle difficult subjects.
• Adapt Your Schedule: As the bar exam approaches, adjust your study schedule to mimic the timing of the actual exam to acclimate your body and mind.  If you have been studying until the wee hours of the morning through your bar prep, adjusting to a 9:00a exam start time might mean you don’t feel awake when you tackle the first chunk of the bar exam!

3. Tailor Study Methods to Your Learning Style

Recognizing and adapting to your learning style can significantly enhance your ability to study efficiently.  To start, identify your learning style, and then incorporate it into your studies.  Don’t be afraid to adjust a commercial bar prep course to better suit your learning style! Not only will it make your studying more productive, but by studying in a way that better aligns with how you learn, you might find the material just a bit easier to digest.

• Visual Learners: Utilize charts, diagrams, and color-coded notes.  If your outlines don’t include these types of features, create some! You are not only actively engaging in the material, but you’re making materials that will be easy to reference as you get further along in bar prep.
• Auditory Learners: Listen to recordings of your notes and discuss complex topics out loud.  (This can also be a useful technique when it comes to memorization.  If you can’t talk through a topic, chances are, you need to do some additional review to commit it to memory!)
• Kinesthetic Learners: Engage in active learning through teaching others or applying concepts through practical questions.

4. Leverage Technology and Resources Wisely

As you prepare for the bar exam, there are going to be subjects with which you already have great familiarity. If you already know a topic area inside and out, you don’t need to spend as much time with it as other topics that might be less familiar.

• Accelerated Lecture Viewing: Watch lecture videos at 1.5x or 2x speed to cover more ground in less time for familiar topics. The caveat to this, though, is that you might find that a topic that you thought you knew might include nuances that might be unfamiliar.  If that’s the case, slow down the video and make sure you take time to work through some of the more nuanced subject areas.
• Selective Focus: Prioritize time on complex areas where you feel less confident and reduce time spent reviewing well-known material.

5. Focus on High-Yield Topics

Concentrate your studies on topics that frequently appear on the exam. This targeted approach ensures you cover the most important areas thoroughly and ensures you know those topic areas inside and out for the bar exam!

• Identify Key Topics: Focus on subjects like negligence and hearsay, which are commonly tested on both essays and multiple-choice questions.
• Efficient Review: Use practice tests to identify these topics and understand how they are framed in exam questions so you can easier spot these issues when they appear on the bar exam!

6. Efficient Memorization Techniques

Memorization is key to success on the bar exam. To better commit the material to memory, make sure you utilize active memorization techniques.  This will not only help you better retain the material, it can also help you identify areas that need additional work.

• Use Existing Outlines: Rather than rewriting notes, review existing outlines and supplement them with mnemonics or short summaries. Cover your outlines as you work through and see if you can talk through portions of your outline from memory without looking at the materials.  Some students find speaking out loud during this process helps them identify areas that need work!
• Practice Active Recall: Test yourself regularly on key points to enhance retention without spending excessive time on flashcards.  While flashcards can be useful, some students find they spend so much time creating flashcards that they miss out on time for memorization.  Don’t fall into this trap as you prepare for the bar exam!

7. Regularly Evaluate and Adapt Your Study Plan

As you continue your way through bar prep, make sure to regularly assess the effectiveness of your study strategies. Each week, take time to reflect on what methods are working and which aren’t, and make necessary adjustments. This not only ensures you are studying efficiently but also allows you to adapt to better techniques as needed.  You might also find that what you need might change throughout bar prep, especially if you encounter a topic area that particularly gives you trouble.

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